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Sunday, November 2, 2014

Portugal scrambles jets again to intercept Russian bombers

Portugal
scrambled F-16 jet fighters for the second time this week on Friday to
intercept Russian bombers in the international air space along its coast
in a new sign of an unusual burst of Russian activity next to NATO's
southern borders.

Defence Minister Jose
Pedro Aguiar-Branco told reporters the Portuguese jets successfully
intercepted, identified and accompanied two Russian aircraft out of the international air space under the Portuguese jurisdiction.

"This
means that the system worked again ... The Air Force is ready to carry
out these missions every time that the NATO air command requests this,"
he said.
Local media said
the Russian planes involved were two Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers
and that they flew near the approach path for commercial aircraft to
Lisbon international airport.

On
Thursday, following a similar incident the previous day, Foreign
Minister Rui Machete said the Russian attitude was "not very likeable",
but added that its "significance is not worth exaggerating".

On
Wednesday, NATO aircraft, including Portuguese, tracked Russian
aircraft over the Atlantic, the Black Sea and the Baltic. There has been
no violation of NATO air space, but such high numbers of sorties and
the fact that the planes are pushing further south are unusual,
according to the Western alliance.

NATO
has conducted more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft so far this
year, about three times as many as in 2013, before the confrontation
with Moscow over separatist revolts in ex-Soviet Ukraine soured
relations.